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I answer both questions, “Yeah, it seems I do.”
His eyes sear me with silvery fire. “I’m so fucking glad, Ferris.” He leans forward and presses his forehead to mine, whispering, “I’m going to work really hard to never lose your trust, which is why all three of us need to talk today.”
My mind whirls, wondering what could possibly be worrying him so much now that we’ve had this overdue conversation. I move my head back and take a stab in the dark. “Is this about the full moon? You mentioned it before—that we need to be in wolf territory before the full moon.”
He sighs. “Yeah. When Raine comes back, I’ll explain.”
I nod and go back to packing to keep my mind off this mysterious secret looming over our heads like a thunder cloud. Luckily, it doesn’t take long for our omega to return, and then we’re on the road again.
Several minutes into our next leg, Dair clears his throat, and my body tenses in anticipation. I know it can’t be anything too bad, but my instincts are still out of whack, having never gone back to baseline even after getting my knot milked.
“I need to tell you both something,” he starts. His scent turns a little apprehensive, matching the worried furrow between his brows. “I was hoping to be on the steamer headed home when we had this conversation, but unfortunately, time is not on our side.”
“What is it?” Raine asks, walking closer to Dair to take his hand.
He gives her a little smile. “Shifters are sensitive to a lot of things in nature that humans don’t have to worry about. For instance, we get really attached to our territory in a spiritual way, to the point that our wolves start to feel irritable, even sick, if we’re away for too long.
“Another thing is our connection to the moon. We feel the moon cycles in our blood, calling to our wolves even before we shift for the first time. In adulthood, this doesn’t really manifest as anything other than heightened senses around the full moon, unless you find your true mate.”
“What’s a true mate?” Raine asks, eyes wide with curiosity.
“It’s the shifter version of a human scent-match, except the connection is tied deeper, at soul level, and manifests as a three-way bond between a shifter, their wolf, and their true mate. You can think of it like a shifter’s true mate is their scent-match, but also the fated mate of their wolf.”
Raine’s shoulders rise closer to her ears and her scent slightly burns. “So, how do you know if you’ve found your true mate?” Is that jealousy in her voice? Poor omega, doesn’t she realize that to us, she is the moon?
Dair’s face is serene as he explains, “When you see them for the first time, it feels like the Earth stops spinning. You can barely keep your feet under you as everything you thought you knew reorganizes around your mate. It’s realizing that your wolf’s soul was never just yours, and it’s feeling the overwhelming relief that you finally found its match.”
Raine trembles so hard she stops walking altogether. “How do you know that?”
“Because I met my true mate when I was sent across the country to forge an alliance in the Midlands.”
Raine’s eyes fill with tears as her voice becomes hoarse with emotion. “That’s what this feeling is, isn’t it? This connection that’s simultaneously everything but also somehow more? We’re not scent-matches. We’re true mates,” she says.
“Yeah, baby, we are.” Pride shines in his eyes as he stares at our omega.
Her head shakes, almost in disbelief, but then her eyes fly to mine. “Does that mean . . . ?” she trails off.
“Yes,” I croak. “I think so, anyway.”
“Both of you?” she breathes. She flings herself into Dair’s arms, backpack still on, and kisses him with so much passion I can’t bite back my growl. She slips from his arms and into mine, clinging to me like I’m the only thing on Earth keeping her on the ground. Like I’m her gravity.
When she kisses me, I lick into her mouth, devouring her taste that’s tinged with Dair’s. I smell him closing in on us before he steps behind Raine and wraps his arms around her to grip my hips, pulling us all together. This is what I’ve been moving toward my whole life. Getting kicked out of my family’s compound and left to die, being found by River, of all people, and subsequently getting brought right to my mate’s doorstep.
I feel our designation instincts taking over as our more human sides fall to the wayside. It wouldn’t take much to get lost in pleasure again, and I’m more than ready to give in to the pull between us, but Raine breaks our kiss.
“Wait,” she says. “Was that what you wanted to tell us?”
Dair shakes his head. “Not exactly, but I’m glad that you know because it’s going to make the next part easier to understand.”
“What else?” I ask as we separate.
Color blooms on Dair’s cheeks and his scent turns a little electric. “Have either of you ever heard of an alpha rut?”
Raine shakes her head, listening intently. “No, I haven’t.”
“Neither have I.”
“That’s not surprising. It’s a hormonal surge, kind of like omega heat,” Dair explains. “Once an alpha shifter meets their true mate, the moon pulls at their hormones, building them up in a cycle that matches the moon’s phases. On the full moon, an alpha’s hormones surge and their wolf overrides their humanity. Their animal instincts steer their human form to claim their mate in the most primal way they can: breeding them. The Lunar Mother thinks that it’s the moon’s way of pulling mates together, giving them time together to appease their instincts so that hopefully this hormonal surge will result in a bond. We call this breeding state: rut.”
